


Wish You Were Here

by alakeofstars



Series: Wish You Were Here [1]
Category: NCT (Band), SuperM (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Coming Out, Dialogue Heavy, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Human Resources Nightmare, M/M, Slack and Zoom Facilitating Work-from-Home Romances, Software Engineers In Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:00:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29033571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alakeofstars/pseuds/alakeofstars
Summary: Content warning: this is set during the pandemic, and quarantine, stress, anxiety, and loneliness are mentioned throughout. Be good to yourselves if you're having a rough time; skip this if it might cause any distress. Be safe.***I told you, he wrote to Yangyang after the conference call.i meanyou did kind of call him a messi would mute you too“God,” Yukhei groaned, pulling the hood of his sweater up and putting his head against his desk. He wondered how far he could get in his car if he packed now and started driving, and then remembered that Slack was on his phone and even physically running away wouldn’t keep Ten from being able to text him.
Relationships: Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten/Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas, Liu Yang Yang & Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas
Series: Wish You Were Here [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2148465
Comments: 10
Kudos: 137





	1. Chapter 1

Yukhei hated his job.

More than that, really: he hated his life and he felt badly about that, because when he compared his life to his former cohorts’, he knew that he was lucky.

He had a loving family, supportive parents who understood that it would be hard for him to find a job as a software engineer armed only with an internship and a GitHub with a handful of side projects to show for experience. On top of that, he graduated in the middle of a pandemic, when most companies had put hiring freezes into place. They helped him with his bills while he submitted resume after resume, they did mock interviews over Zoom with him until his voice no longer wavered and his palms stopped sweating, and they talked him through the long nights of doubt and anxiety.

 _You’ll get a job_ , they told him over and over. _You’ll get a good job. It’ll be okay._

It was hard to admit to them and to his friends from university, months later, when he had the job, that he was miserable. So he kept it to himself, he bottled it up and rolled out of bed every morning and drank his coffee at his desk. He dreaded his morning stand-ups, when his team all logged into the conference call and rattled off the tasks for the day, any blockers they had or anticipated, and made jokes of questionable quality.

They all knew each other. They had been working together for years before the pandemic and everyone had to transition to working from home, and he was jealous of their connection, the camaraderie.

None of them seemed half as lonely as he felt.

His first week in, his boss paired him up with an older senior engineer on the team. Ten, he said, was the perfect person to onboard him: “He is the nicest out of them all. I really think you two will get along.”

Yukhei had been hopeful — and he tried so hard to be friendly and respectful, to learn as much as he could from Ten. It hadn’t been all bad, at least in the very beginning. It just hadn’t been great either. Lately, though, it seemed like he couldn’t do anything right.

“Dude, just get through the first three months,” Yangyang said when Yukhei finally said something. “My first three months were hell. It felt like I was actively dragging the team down.”

“And then it got better?”

Yangyang laughed. “I mean, not really. That’swhen I accepted the fact that everyone could code circles around me. I felt completely useless until my sixth month — it just was less soul-crushing after the first ninety days.”

“Thanks, I hate it. Who did you get paired with?”

“Kun. He was great but you’re really lucky. Ten’s fucking brilliant.” Yangyang sighed and shook his head wistfully. “If I could be half as good as him? Damn.”

“Yeah,” Yukhei muttered, looking down at his keyboard.

It was high praise from someone who had finished high school early and graduated with his Computer Science degree at twenty; if _Yangyang_ thought Ten was smart, then Yukhei knew that Ten was light years ahead of him. He didn’t feel lucky. It just made him feel worse.

“I don’t think he likes me. It’s fine. He doesn’t have to like me — we’re coworkers, not friends. But I’m not sure what I did.”

Yangyang worried his bottom lip and then shrugged. “I think everyone is just trying to do their best during all of this. I wouldn’t take it personally. I seriously doubt he doesn’t like you. Ten likes everyone. Even me.”

Yukhei had his doubts but he swallowed them and nodded.

* * *

Everyone was all laughs at stand-up the next day.

“We’re going to start working on updating the plug-in,” Kun said, trying to get everyone back on track. He was only partially successful.

“Oh, thank god. The plug-in hasn’t been touched in years. It’s old and a mess.”

“Hey!” Taeil protested. He looked truly pained, and for good reason: it had been one of the first big projects he had worked on when he was first hired. Yukhei heard the other members of the team refer to it repeatedly as his ‘baby.’

“ _I_ am old and a mess,” Ten chimed in.

Yukhei saw the opening and went for it: “you’re not old.”

His headphones crackled from the volume of the team’s response and for a moment, he felt proud. Like he was finally fitting in. Ten, however, rolled his eyes and set his mouth in a hard line.

“So I’m a mess?” He asked dryly, once the laughter settled down.

“Um —“

“Right. Who is the host? Someone mute him.”

Yukhei’s ears burned and he ducked his head.

 _I told you_ , he wrote to Yangyang after the conference call.

 _i mean  
_ _you did kind of call him a mess  
_ _i would mute you too_

“God,” Yukhei groaned, pulling the hood of his sweater up and putting his head against his desk. He wondered how far he could get in his car if he packed now and started driving, and then remembered that Slack was on his phone and even physically running away wouldn’t keep Ten from being able to text him.

* * *

The snide comments continued through the rest of the week and into the next, and each one took a toll on Yukhei no matter how hard he pretended they didn’t.

“Not to be rude,” Ten started, his eyes still on the monitor where his IDE was pulled up, “but did you even listen to any of my feedback from last week?”

Yukhei sighed heavily. He dreaded his Friday 1:1 meetings with Ten. The paired programming was all right despite Ten’s impatience, he felt like he was still learning and growing when they were working together, but on Wednesdays and Thursdays, he worked alone and then reviewed the code with Ten before making the commit. And they always seemed to end up like this, with Ten ripping his work to shreds while subtly - or not so subtly, depending on the week and this week was particularly bad - insulting him.

“Yeah,” he said shortly. “Why?”

“Because, looking at this, it feels like you completely ignored me. You’re still doing everything the long way. You could have just written a function to handle this and saved yourself some time. It’s not like you’re being paid by the line.”

Ten looked back at the cam and Yukhei immediately averted his eyes, but he had always been expressive, he had never developed a poker face, and his frustration was clear to see.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, no. Tell me. What’s wrong?”

 _What’s wrong?_ He snorted.

Yukhei dragged his gaze back to Ten and clenched his teeth briefly as he decided what he wanted to say. Finally, “are you hazing me or something? Seriously.”

Ten laughed. “Am I hazing you? This isn’t high school.”

“You’re being super fucking harsh. You’ve been super fucking harsh the whole time we’ve been working together. Literally nothing I do is right. Did I do something to piss you off?”

The senior engineer was quiet for a moment and Yukhei braced himself, but impact never came. Instead, it was his turn to glance away.

“I’m sorry,” he said, surprising Yukhei. He didn’t realize Ten could apologize, or that he would ever want to.

“It’s fine,” Yukhei muttered.

“It’s actually _not_ ,” Ten snapped but he sounded more angry with himself than anything. “My ex-boyfriend and I just broke up. It’s been bad since before quarantine started and I haven’t been dealing with it well.”

“Oh,” Yukhei said, his eyebrows raised slightly. He had wondered, having watched Ten interact in a way that he could only read as flirtatious with the team members, but it never came up in conversation and he had no reason to ask.

“Yeah.” Ten’s eyes flickered to the screen, as if trying to gauge Yukhei’s reaction but there really wasn’t anything other than the brief moment of recognition.

“That’s rough. I’m sorry, man. Were you guys together for long? You don't -- we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” he added quickly, not wanting to press Ten to talk about something painful.

Ten shook his head. “It’s fine. Two years in January. Anyway,” he sighed and shook his head again. “Anyway, it’s not you. You’re doing fine. Going from the classroom and side projects to your first job is difficult. I shouldn’t be taking this out on you. I can get you paired with someone else, if you want.”

Yukhei didn’t know how to respond. For the last month and a half, all he had wanted was to be reassigned. If Kun didn’t have enough on his plate as it was, acting as unofficial project manager, Yukhei would have approached him directly and pled his case.

“Let’s just start over. Okay?” He said finally.

Ten looked at him long and hard through the monitor, and then nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for reading and any kudos left. Writing feels like the only thing I have in quarantine. #writerislonely
> 
> Also, surprising absolutely no one, I am terrible at beginning stories and feel most comfortable somewhere in the middle, so I apologize that this is weak.


	2. Chapter 2

To Yukhei’s relief, things got better after he confronted Ten. They ended the day on a high note, discussing and working through a blocker and by the end of their 1:1, Yukhei committed his code.

“Good job,” Ten had said and smiled. Later, when he was cooking dinner and thinking through his day, he realized that was the first time Ten had really, genuinely smiled at him. It was nice, he decided; he wanted to make him smile more often. It was so much better than the scowls from the last month and a half.

It took some time, but eventually the change in their dynamic became noticeable even to other members of the team.

_dude_

The alert from Slack slid across Yukhei’s screen and he glanced over to his second monitor. Yangyang was messaging him quickly.

 _did ten just compliment you?  
_ _i told you he didn’t hate you  
_ _do you know how long it took for ten to compliment me  
_ _months  
_ _oh god  
_ _i feel so conflicted, you’ve been here like 2 and a half months and you’re already getting compliments  
_ _am i happy or super fucking jealous right now_

Yangyang’s pings were quiet for a beat, and then: _i am a monster_

_Jealous?_

_i think i need a personal day_

Yukhei grinned and turned his attention back to the Zoom call, where Taeil was fighting a losing battle, attempting to convince Kun that one of the planned user stories was unnecessary.

“That feature works exactly as intended.”

“Taeil,” Kun said patiently, “it doesn’t work half the time in Windows 10.”

“Who uses Windows 10?”

Half the team groaned.

“You’re killing me.” Ten scrubbed at his face with his hands before holding them both up. “The puppy and I will look at it this week. Okay? We’ll use a soft touch. We’ll even leave all of your comments as-is. No one will even know we were there.”

Taeil looked somewhat relieved at this suggestion but Yukhei’s eyes had widened slightly.

“Am I the puppy?” He blurted out, earning a few laughs.

“You’re the puppy,” Ten confirmed, smiling slightly.

_YOURE THE PUPPY?_

Yangyang was losing it in Slack.

 _ten never gave me a nickname  
_ _i bet he thinks yangyang is a nickname  
_ _oh my god  
_ _i hate it here_

“Oh,” Yukhei said and nodded. “Okay, cool. Just checking.”

“We can meet later today to discuss the end goal for this story, okay? Taeil, you’re invited,” he added as the other engineer started to open his mouth and Taeil visibly relaxed. Yukhei refused to look at Yangyang’s square.

A few minutes later, an invitation to a Zoom meeting appeared in Yukhei’s inbox. Ten had scheduled it for around the time Yukhei usually took lunch but it didn’t seem worth it to ask to reschedule. Not when things were going well.

* * *

Yukhei’s neighborhood had been perfect before quarantine. Twenty minutes away from his university, he more often than not took the train in, which gave him time to listen to music and watch out the window. Or, as he described it to his mother, “read.”

The walkability rating was through the roof and the fact that he had a handful of nice restaurants, a few shops, and a charming little French bakery all within five minutes had kept him there through his Junior and Senior years. By the time cloth masks had become mandated, all of the baristas and most of the wait staff knew him well enough to recognize him by his voice. When the gelato place went out of business, one of the girls felt close enough to give him her number and add him on his Instagram. They still texted every so often.

It seemed important to Yukhei to develop some sort of routine once the shelter-in-place orders went into effect. The first few weeks, he had been more limited, but as restrictions were slowly lifted, he did his best to stick to a schedule.

On Monday mornings, he went to the bakery for coffee and bought too many pastries to eat in one sitting. He tipped generously and then usually shoved whatever spare change or bills he had in his pocket into the jar after signing his receipt; he told everyone to have a good day and stay safe. He said silent prayers to whoever or whatever might be listening. He didn’t dare think that he might be praying to empty air.

He was in the process of cobbling together a lunch of things he had made over the weekend and a Marionberry cheese brioche leftover from his pastry-buying spree when Ten pinged him.

 _Taeil overbooked himself. He’s not going to make it.  
_ _Do you still want to meet?_

Yukhei sucked the powered sugar from his fingertips before he wrote back: _yeah sure. When?_

_Are you free now?_

He hummed anxiously, looking at his collection of food on his plate, and then murmured a hearty “fuck it” to himself.

 _Yeah,t hat works.  
_ _*That_

Ten sent over a link to a Zoom and Yukhei joined.

“Hey,” he greeted when his cam and mic connected. “Sorry. I thought we were meeting later, so I’m having lunch.”

“Shit. Sorry. Why didn’t you say something?”

“Because I can eat and Zoom at the same time. I’m multi-talented.”

Ten smiled and Yukhei added a tick to the running count in his head. _Nailed it._

“What’re you eating?” Ten asked, narrowing his eyes and leaning closer to the computer. Was he using a Zoom filter or did he truly not possess pores? Yukhei wanted to ask but it seemed somehow too personal and they were just now becoming friends. Friendly? Something like that.

“It’s a cheese brioche.” Yukhei lifted his pastry and tilted it so Ten could see it better.

“What is on it?”

“Berries? Marionberries.”

Ten’s nose wrinkled and he sat back. “I don’t like fruit.”

“All fruit?” Yukhei had never met someone who didn’t like fruit. Actually, he took that back: his cousin couldn’t eat citrus. “Does it give you a stomach ache?”

“No,” Ten responded and then seemed to shudder to himself, but it was hard to tell through the webcam. “It’s gross. Fruit’s gross.”

“Oh my god,” Yukhei laughed. “It’s not _gross_. Fruit is delicious.”

“It is,” Ten insisted. “I asked my doctor last year if I could get away with never eating fruit again. I told her I’d eat all of the vegetables she wanted and take a multi-vitamin.”

“What did she say?” Yukhei asked before moving in to take a bite of his brioche.

“She said she couldn’t support me in that.”

Yukhei exhaled a laugh through his nose, causing the powdered sugar to puff into a small cloud. “Shit,” he muttered, voice muffled from the mouthful of pastry. His shirt and keyboard were now covered in white.

Ten laughed. “Good job, puppy. That’s what you get for eating fruit.”

Unwilling to continue talking with his mouth full, Yukhei gave Ten a helpless gesture, then held up one finger, asking for a moment to let him finish his bite.

“You’re so mean to me,” he teased once he could, without thinking, and then regretted it because Ten’s face fell slightly.

“Not anymore.”

“You’re right. Sorry. What did you want to talk about?”

The moment Taeil had realized that he had a scheduling conflict, he had, as Ten so fondly put it, lost his fucking mind and sent ping after ping to Ten, reiterating the argument he had been making during stand-up. If things _had_ to be changed, however, he had some recommendations in the form of eight bullet points, all of which Ten copied and pasted and then proceeded to read out loud so Yukhei wouldn’t have to touch his mouse to click over before he washed his hands.

“Is he usually like this?” Yukhei asked.

“It depends on the day. And the feature,” Ten added and then tilted his head, still in consideration. “And if he previously worked on the feature. If he’s particularly proud of it, I think it makes his heart hurt to imagine someone coming in and changing it all. If it’s my work, he’s more than happy to tear it shreds,” Ten said brightly.

“Amazing,” Yukhei breathed.

“Welcome to software development. I’ll look through his wishlist with Kun and see what we can do, and then we can decide what to work on this week. Sounds good?”

“Yeah, cool. Sounds like a plan.”

Ten seemed to want to say something else and Yukhei tensed, hoping he wouldn’t bring up the ‘mean’ comment; it had just been a joke. He hadn’t meant to make a dig at him. 

“What bakery did you go to?” He asked finally.

“St. Honoré.”

“Oh, I’ve been there. Wait, where do you live?”

“A block away from the bakery. It’s awesome. I’ve gained like five pounds.”

“Me too. Well,” Ten twisted his mouth a little, “like three blocks away. And I haven’t gained any weight.”

“That’s because you’re further away!” Yukhei protested. “It’s literally downstairs! I don't even take the stairs. I just take the elevator and then roll down the sidewalk.”

"Nice. Maximize that laziness." Ten grinned. “I didn’t realize you lived so close. Anyway, I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

When the call ended, Yukhei went for a wash cloth to clean up after himself and as he wiped off the powdered sugar, he found himself sort of liking the idea of Ten being a few blocks away. They couldn’t see each other — and he wasn’t sure if Ten would ever want to actually hang-out with him — but he felt, even at the smallest level, just a little less lonely.


	3. Chapter 3

_Are you even ready for this?_ Ten pinged on Friday morning.

At Kun’s insistence, they spent the week reviewing the code separately; Yukhei, after all, was nearing his ninety days and, at that time, he would be considered fully on-boarded. Yukhei thought that his week would be quieter without the constant Zoom calls but in lieu of video conferencing, Ten had been a constant companion in Slack.

 _I am_ , Yukhei sent back and then continued typing: _I was b—_

_If you say you were born ready, I will fire you._

Yukhei grinned, deleted his message and just sent dots. Then: _YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME_

 _I will literally get promoted so I AM the boss of you.  
_ _And then fire you._

“Way harsh, Ten,” Yukhei drawled once they were in their Zoom meeting.

“It’s a rough world out there, puppy. I’m doing you absolutely no favors if I don’t prepare you for it,” Ten said with a smile.

The nickname gave Yukhei a nice, warm feeling. Ten’s glasses did, too, rounding out the angles of his face, softening him in a way that Yukhei found sort of sweet. Cute, even.

“So, first thoughts?” Ten prompted.

Yukhei exhaled slowly, wincing at the code on his second monitor. He admired Taeil and didn’t want to be rude, but Kun had been right: the plugin was a mess. “Are you sure we can’t delete at least some of these comments? A lot of them are just him talking to himself.”

“I made a promise, Yukhei!” Ten gasped, scandalized. “I don’t break my promises. Share your screen so I can see what you’re talking about.”

Yukhei started the screenshare and they scrolled through, taking turns reading the comments out loud, becoming more dramatic as they progressed.

“Oh, and I found this, too,” he said, scrolling further.

“Found what? Is it a little Unicode guy flipping a table? Because that seems on brand for him."

“This comment from JS,” Yukhei said, highlighting it in the IDE. “Who is JS? I thought this was Taeil’s baby.”

“Johnny Suh. I forgot he had worked on this back then.”

The energy shifted suddenly. Tension in Ten’s voice set off alarm bells and it took Yukhei a moment to remember that he didn’t actively hate him anymore. He glanced at the small Ten square in the corner of the Zoom window: the soft smiles were gone now and the other engineer looked preoccupied with something off-screen.

“Someone who used to work here?” Yukhei asked.

“Yeah. He left about six months ago.”

“So he probably won’t care if we refactor his code, right? No broken hearts like with Taeil,” he tried to joke but it fell flat.

Ten did not laugh and he certainly did not smile. Instead, he chirped a “nope” in a forced cheery voice.

After the call, Yukhei pinged Yangyang: _who is Johnny Suh?_

 _old engineer  
_ _he left for another company  
_ _why_

_No reason. I found his comments in the code I’m working on._

Yukhei stared at the blinking cursor in the Slack window for a moment and then asked: _is he friends with Ten?_

 _i think they were pretty close  
_ _i think they had a falling out tho_

_Do you know why?_

_idk  
_ _my head canon is that there was a knife fight that ended badly_

_A knife fight??_

Yangyang responded with a string of knife emojis.

_Are there good endings for a knife fight?_

_there are if you win  
_ _dude do you not have knife fights with your friends and family_

 _Dude  
_ _Do you?_

_they're my love language_

Yukhei tried to get back on task but his mind wandered back to Ten. Logically, he knew that there was no reason why he should be thinking about any of it. He didn’t know Johnny. Understanding Ten and Johnny’s friendship had nothing to do with his work. It was none of his business. But every time he tried to move on, his brain went back, grasping at threads of old conversations.

Ten had mentioned that he and his ex had been involved for over two years before their break-up. The timeline wasn’t perfect but Yukhei wondered if they had been dating quietly. Had he left so they could be open about it? Was that why it had been bad before the break-up? Yukhei suddenly felt protective of Ten, and more than a little angry at Johnny for doing, well, whatever he had done.

He pinged Yangyang again to distract himself.

 _I’m done  
_ _My brain is done  
_ _Send me home._

 _friend  
_ _you are home  
_ _always_

And then Yangyang sent a gif of Dennis Reynolds screaming into a pillow.

* * *

Yukhei was embarrassed to admit to himself how much he wondered about Johnny Suh over the weekend. It was like he was stuck on a track: every time he thought he could escape the looping thought, his mind would drift back, even when he was busy doing other things. Laundry, an awful task to begin with, had its misery factor amplified when paired with thoughts of some guy Yukhei knew he’d never meet.

Monday, however, brought some respite. Two long meetings and paired programming with Ten helped keep his mind from coming up with a plan to stalk Johnny on LinkedIn, and he was grateful for it because on Sunday night, instead of sleeping, he had laid in bed and wondered if he should do a search or dig through Ten’s connections. Just in case he went by John and what if it was a more popular name combination than he thought? As much as he desperately wanted to stop thinking about him, he also wanted to make sure he was stalking the right one.

 _This is what prolonged isolation does to you_ , he thought to himself. _It makes you a crazy person._

“I think that’s enough for the day,” Ten said around 3PM.

They had been working hard for the last three hours, taking short breaks to grab drinks and more snacks. Yukhei had even managed to fit in a gentle ribbing about Ten’s fancy tea sachets.

“Awesome,” Yukhei breathed, putting his hands on the back of his head and stretching in his chair. It was easy to lose time when they were working together but his back always kept count of just how many minutes he spent crouched over his keyboard and peering up at his screen.

“You’re doing a great job.”

“Hey, thanks,” Yukhei said with a grin. “You’re a really good teacher.”

“When I’m not yelling at you?” Ten asked, wiggling his brows. Enough time had passed that they could bring it up as a joke although Yukhei always let Ten lead the way with that, remembering how sad he had looked when he first teased him.

“You said it, not me,” Yukhei said. Then he winked, before he realized what he was doing. He licked over his bottom lip and glanced toward his second monitor, hoping the wink hadn’t been noticed. Not that it meant anything — because it didn’t. It was just a wink, they were joking around. He winked at a lot of people.

Ten exhaled a short laugh. “I’m glad you don’t hold a grudge.”

“Are you kidding? I’m basically your ride or die now. I would go to _war_ for you.”

“Like a Helen of Troy situation or do you mean, like, I’m the general and you’d follow me into battle?”

“Um,” Yukhei began, head tilted as if he were in careful consideration, looking back into the webcam. “Both, maybe? Do you have preference?”

Ten preened and Yukhei wasn’t sure he was playing along or genuinely pleased. Part of him really hoped for the latter. “I don’t.”

“Okay, well, you have time to decide.”

“When is the war?”

“Friday.”

“Okay, cool. I’ll decide by Thursday and let you know. Can you put something on my calendar?”

“I’m already on it,” Yukhei said, pulling up his calendar in the browser. He clicked through quickly and then nodded. “Okay, done.”

“I don’t see the invitation.”

“No? Give it a minute? Refresh?”

Ten clicked his mouse. One, twice, then a few more times, rapid fire. “Nope. What email did you send it to?”

“Let me check.” Yukhei returned to his calendar and then laughed, putting his hands over his face. “Oh fuck me,” he muttered through his fingers.

“What? What happened?” Ten asked, moving in his chair, as if that would allow him to see better.

“Well,” Yukhei said finally, lowering his hands. “I definitely just sent an invitation to war to someone else on the team.”

“Oh _god._ ” Ten started laughing.

“Kun is going to be so confused.”

“This is going to crush him! He won’t understand why you want to fight him on Friday,” Ten managed to choke out.

“He’s going to decline the invitation but then HR is going to accept.”

“Stop, stop!” Ten croaked and then doubled over in his chair, face hidden from the cam. Yukhei could hear him wheeze and then cough. When he lifted his head, he was rubbing his eyes with his palms.

“Dude, did I just make you cry?”

“Shut up,” Ten snapped but he was smiling, ear-to-ear, and that happy, warm feeling from last week bloomed in Yukhei's chest again.


	4. Chapter 4

There were messages waiting for Yukhei in Slack when he signed in that morning. The first, from Yangyang:

 _DUDE  
_ _HAPPY NINETY DAYS  
_ _you’re a real boy now  
_ _i hope it’s everything you thought it would be_

Yukhei laughed and then clicked on Ten’s name.

_Good morning! Guess what day it is?_

Yukhei played dumb, wanting to give Ten the moment: _What day is it? Wednesday?_

 _Haha  
_ _Close.  
_ _It’s your ninetieth day.  
_

Yukhei had worked part-time during his freshman and sophomore years, before his course load became too much. No one had ever cared that he had been at his job for ninety days. Hell, no one cared when he reached a year.

The fact that Ten — and Yangyang, he added — cared enough to keep track and celebrate it was touching.

_Where’s my cake? I was told there would be cake, that’s the only reason I accepted the offer._

This was, apparently, the wrong question to ask because Ten then flooded their conversation with cake pictures and gifs. At some point, Yukhei stood up to go refresh his coffee and when he came back, Ten was still going.

 _Cake_ , Ten wrote. _Enjoy._

Later, in stand-up, Ten made a similar announcement and then Yukhei remembered why this day would stand out to him.

“My little chick is ready to leave the nest,” Ten said, feigning a sob. "He's officially on-boarded."

“I thought he was a puppy,” someone said but Yukhei wasn’t paying attention. He was too focused on trying to wrap his mind around how his new daily schedule would change. They wouldn’t be working together as much. Paired programming, sure, but the weekly 1:1 meetings? They had become long but mostly because Yukhei and Ten would start talking and joking around. Those would be going away, wouldn't they?

Anxiety started to creep in.

“He _is_ a puppy,” Ten snapped.

“Congratulations,” Kun said. “Yukhei, I’ll schedule a time tomorrow for us to discuss what next week will look like, okay?”

“Hey. Yeah. Thanks, sounds good.” He gave the webcam a thumbs up and a smile, but his heart wasn’t in it.

 _It’ll be okay_ , Ten pinged.  
 _You’re going to do great.  
_ _And I’ll always be here if you have questions._

Yukhei wasn’t sure if he visibly relaxed but he caught Ten smiling in his square and figured that he must have.

 _Want to see something funny?_ Ten asked.

_Always._

_WHO THE FUCK IS BEN_ , Ten wrote a moment later and then sent a screenshot from an email, where someone had greeted and wished ‘Ben’ a good morning.

Yukhei laughed, then clapped his hand over his mouth, realizing he wasn’t muted. He rotated the mic on his headset up to cut any sound from him.

_Your evil twin?_

_I am the evil twin,_ Ten wrote back immediately, then:

 _Do you want to do Zoom lunch today?  
_ _Lunch Zoom  
_ _Lunch on Zoom  
_ _Zucchini_

 _what,_ Yukhei typed back. He was grateful that he had muted himself, so no one could hear him choke with laughter.

 _Jesus fucking Christ,_ Ten wrote. _*zunch_

_How did you get zucchini from Zunch?_

_Autocorrect. Anyway._

_Anyway. Yeah, sounds good. Noon?_

_Yeah._

Five minutes later, a Zoom invitation landed in his inbox: _Ten & Yukhei - Zunch. _Yukhei grinned and accepted, and then tried his very best to refocus on the morning stand-up.

* * *

The hours between stand-up and lunch seemed to drag on forever but he blamed it on the worry he had simmering on low in the back of his mind. Ten said that he would always be there but there was a difference between ‘being there’ and having standing appointments waiting for him every week. Maybe he would be open to keeping something scheduled? Was that too weird to ask?

“What’re you having for lunch?”

“Oh man,” Yukhei laughed, mixing his yogurt with his spoon, trying toredistribute the chopped dried apricots he had added. “You don’t want to know.”

“Is it fruit? Oh my god, I _don’t_ want to know.”

“I told you!”

Ten grinned and poked at his own lunch with his fork. “Crazy it’s been ninety days, huh?”

“Feels like it’s been longer. That first month,” Yukhei grimaced. “Brutal.”

“Trial by fire.”

“Is that what you call yourself? Fire? Have I been calling you the wrong name this whole time?” Yukhei shoveled a spoonful of yogurt into his mouth.

“It’s actually Ben,” Ten said brightly and Yukhei exhaled his laughter through his nose, reaching up to cover his mouth so he didn’t do anything embarrassing. Like sputter yogurt all over.

“Where did Ten come from?” He asked after he swallowed.

“Something I just started using in middle school.” Ten shrugged. “I wanted to stand out.”

Yukhei was skeptical that Ten needed a nickname to do that but he kept that to himself. “I went by Lucas in school,” he volunteered. "Elementary school to college."

“Lucas,” Ten repeated, as if trying it out. “I like Yukhei. What does your mother call you?”

“She calls me Yukhei. But my dad calls me Xuxi sometimes.”

“Xuxi!” Ten laughed and Yukhei felt his ears grow warm. “Cute."

“What does _your_ mom call you?”

“Her favorite.” Ten grinned, biting the tip of his tongue in a way that made Yukhei’s stomach knot a little. “Chittaphon. My name is Chittaphon.”

“No one ever calls you that.”

“Nah,” Ten shook his head. “My parents told me I should go by my legal name after I graduated, when I got my first job. But I kind of like that I am Chittaphon to them, like, that’s my _family_ name. It’s just for them.”

“My parents told me the same thing.”

“And that’s why you’re Yukhei and not Lucas,” Ten filled in before taking a bite of his salad.

“Are tomatoes not technically fruit?” Yukhei asked, doing his best to sound innocent.

Ten made a slicing motion at his neck with his fork, before managing a “shut it.” Yukhei just smiled. With Ten’s mouth full, it was his turn to carry the conversation.

“You know, I told my parents that I wanted a work-from-home position, but man. Not like this,” Yukhei laughed. “This has been hard.”

“I know what you mean. Our team was always allowed to work from home after our first ninety days, so it wasn’t a huge shift for me at first. But sometimes I think about how the HR department sent out this email, and it was like ‘please consider working from home for the next two weeks.’ And then, a few days later, they announced that they were closing the office for two weeks and we _had_ to work from home. Why did we think two weeks would do anything?” Ten asked, his brows furrowed above his glasses. He poked through the salad, looking for something specific to eat next. “Sometimes it all just feels so surreal to me."

“Yeah. Same here. I told my parents last week, you know, like, I can’t come and see them until the vaccine comes out." Yukhei sighed, "so, who knows when I'll see them."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, his anxiety latched on to them. What if he never got the chance to see his family? What if something happened? An earthquake? Just because they were in a pandemic didn't mean that other awful things couldn't happen. Car accidents. Heart attacks.

Yukhei exhaled and looked down at his keyboard. Ten was still talking.

“I was reading an article the other day and they’re saying even after vaccinations roll out, life probably won’t go back to normal until sometime late next year.” Ten made finger quotes the best he could while holding a fork and repeated, sarcastically, “’Normal’ - whatever that is after all of this. Can you imagine?”

Yes, he could. Suddenly, he could vividly see himself a year from now, stuck in his apartment. All alone. A year, he thought, he could do. A year and a half? Two years?

“Yeah,” he said weakly.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Yukhei said and shook his head.

“Something is wrong,” Ten insisted.

“I’m having really bad anxiety today.” Yukhei laughed, even though it wasn’t funny. He knew it wasn’t. But he hated admitting that he felt vulnerable, even to Ten.

“We can change the subject.”

“Okay,” Yukhei agreed but there was a shake in his voice that he knew Ten could hear.

“Hey,” Ten said, trying to get his attention. It took a moment for Yukhei to realize he was still staring at his keyboard. “Go lay down, okay? I’ll let Kun know that you needed to go lay down and that you won’t be in standup. Just take it easy the rest of the day.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll check-in on you later.”

Around 5:30 PM, Ten texted Yukhei on his phone: _are you feeling better?_

 _Kind of?_ Yukhei wrote back. He was still laying in bed, the only light coming from his laptop playing some show he hadn’t been paying attention to.

 _I was thinking, you know, if you’re comfortable with it and if it would make you feel better, we could go for a walk.  
_ _Since you’re in my neighborhood anyway.  
_ _We could wear masks. I haven’t seen anyone for months.  
_ _Does that sound like something you’d be okay with doing?_

_Yeah, I haven’t seen anyone either. Just going to the grocery store._

_Want to be my bubble buddy?_

Yukhei smiled at his phone. It would make him feel better to see someone after all of this time. _Yeah_. _What time?_

* * *

Yukhei finally allowed himself to put on his mask at 6:55 PM, even though he had been ready for almost a half hour. He felt like a little kid, impatiently waiting for it to be time to go, but without a parent to encourage patience, he had ended up sitting in his living room, bouncing his legs.

He was just finishing zipping up his jacket and trying to decide on whether or not he should bring an umbrella when the doorbell rang.

“Hey,” Yukhei greeted Ten. “I’d invite you in but, uh —“

“Maybe next year,” Ten joked and then stepped back so he could lock up.

When Yukhei finished and turned, he laughed.

“What?” Ten asked, head tilted back just a little to meet his gaze.

"You're a lot shorter than you seem on the internet,” Yukhei said honestly.

He was the definition of petit, standing a head shorter than Yukhei. Mostly legs. A graceful neck, Yukhei thought and then wondered where that came from. He hadn't never noticed the grace of his neck before.

“Shut up!” From the tone of his voice, Yukhei could tell that he was scowling behind his mask. “You’re a god damn giant.”

Yukhei grinned and shrugged, as if to say he couldn’t help it.

“Where do you want to go?” He asked once they were downstairs, turning his head to look at the empty sidewalk. The neighborhood was quiet, the only sound from the busier road a block over. It was raining and every so often, a slow moving car creeped by, careful not to splash the few pedestrians a few feet away.

“It’s not like anything is open,” Ten reminded him. “We could just make a loop. Cut past the park.”

“Okay,” Yukhei nodded.

They walked in silence for a while and Yukhei wondered if it was awkward, if Ten regretted asking him to meet up.

“How was the rest of your day?” Ten asked, breaking the silence.

“Um,” Yukhei shrugged. “It wasn’t bad. I did end up laying down, like you said.”

“Good.”

“What about you?”

“I had a little bit of a headache so I laid down too.”

Yukhei glanced over at Ten with a small frown, brows drawn together in concern. “Really? We could have gone for a walk tomorrow instead.”

“It’s okay,” Ten said and waved his hand to dismiss the thought. “It’s gone now.”

“Do you get headaches a lot?” Yukhei asked, holding tight to the thread of the conversation to keep Ten talking. They paused at a corner and looked both ways before crossing the street.

“I didn’t used to. Lately, yeah. It’s probably stress.”

“Yeah,” the taller man said, bobbing his head in agreement. “You’ve been dealing with a lot. I probably wasn’t helping. I bet you’re glad you’re free of me,” Yukhei added with a smile even though Ten couldn’t see it.

Ten made an annoyed noise. “Stop. You were never the issue.”

“It’s just everything else.”

“Exactly.”

Another moment of quiet as they walked. Then, Ten asked, “do you have a lot of anxiety attacks?”

“Not really. I guess, lately, though, I haven’t been doing too great,” he admitted after a moment.

“What’s the hardest part?” Ten was watching him closely.

“I don’t know. Being alone all of the time. Missing people. Missing my family.”

Ten nodded, his dark eyes still trained on his face. “When was the last time you saw them?”

“In person? The summer before last. We talk on Zoom but it’s not the same. And we’re pretty close, me and my parents and my brother, I used to see them a lot before my last year of college. I didn’t go home for the holidays because I was so busy with school and side projects. I wish I had now.”

Unexpected tears stung Yukhei’s eyes and he looked away, wishing he had worn a hat he could tug down to hide his face better, but if Ten saw, he mercifully didn’t draw any attention to them.

“I haven’t seen my family in a while either. I really miss them too.”

“Some days are okay and then others,” Yukhei laughed again and shrugged, “this is going to sound so stupid, but sometimes I just really want a hug. I can’t remember the last time someone hugged me.”

The evening fog had gotten thicker as they walked and the street lights looked like glowing buttons in the sky. How many nights had he wandered the neighborhood alone? The streets seemed perpetually empty, which was both a relief and its own special brand of sadness, especially when Yukhei just wanted to say hi to someone.

When Ten stopped suddenly, Yukhei turned. It was hard to read his expression with the mask covering half his face, his bangs obscuring his eyes. 

“I’ll hug you,” Ten said, voice muffled but gentle. 

“No, it’s okay, you don’t have to —“

Ten rolled his eyes and then shook his hair out of his face. “Stop it. You need a hug. I will hug you.”

Yukhei knew he should say no but the offer made every single part of him wanted desperately to hold and be held, even for the briefest moment. 

“Come here,” Ten said, stepping closer, and Yukhei did his best to keep from crumbling into him, their arms awkwardly trying to find their place around one another. “You’re like a tree,” the shorter man huffed and Yukhei laughed. 

“Wait,” he murmured and straightened to his full height, arms around Ten’s shoulders as he hugged his waist. Standing this close, Yukhei could smell Ten’s hair faintly through the mask and something in his heart ached, because he missed that too and just hadn’t realized.

What a silly, small thing to miss. 

He inhaled deeply then turned his head away from Ten. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Breathing on you.”

“It’s okay,” Ten said and then they were quiet for a moment, hugging each other in the middle of the sidewalk. 

“Thank you,” Yukhei said when he felt someone had to say _something._ He didn’t want the hug to end but knew it was time. They were coworkers, there was a pandemic — all reasons to let go even if it hurt. 

“You’re welcome.” Ten patted Yukhei’s back and then stepped away, giving him an appraising look. “You going to be good until next time?”

Yukhei exhaled a laugh that he wasn’t sure that Ten could hear. 

“You mean next year? Maybe.”

“No, puppy,” Ten sighed, sounding somehow both affectionate and impatient at the same time. “Until our next walk. I’m in your bubble now — you’re getting a hug every time I see you. Whether you like it or not.”

Yukhei could feel the tears gather again in his eyes but this time out of relief and he grinned behind his mask, nodding in that over exaggerated way that had become habit since all of this started. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. I’ll be good until our next walk.”

“Okay, good.” 


	5. Chapter 5

It was easy for Yukhei to add his walks with Ten around the neighborhood to his routine. On Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and either Saturday or Sunday, they would meet-up after dinner. Depending on what direction they were going, Yukhei would walk over to Ten’s place or Ten would meet him outside of the lobby. If it rained, it was Yukhei’s duty to bring and hold the umbrella, being the taller of the two. They always greeted each other with a hug and Ten always made sure to reject each of Yukhei’s apologies or negative comments about himself over his need for _some_ kind of physical affection.

“It’s bad for your mental health to go without being touched,” Ten told him one night before ducking his head into Yukhei’s chest. His voice was muffled as he added, “it’s called touch starvation.”

After that, they started holding hands as they walked. If it was raining and Yukhei did have to bring an umbrella, Ten would loop his arm around Yukhei’s. At corners, when waiting for cars or the crosswalk, his head rested against Yukhei’s shoulder and Yukhei never really thought twice about it.

This was what their friendship was, he told himself. This was what worked for them.

* * *

_I really don’t want to cook tonight_ , Yukhei texted Ten.

 _So don’t.  
_ _Become a breatharian._

Yukhei laughed. Yangyang’s entire morning update had been a rant about his friend who insisted he was now a part-time breatharian and how he would stare at the sun for sustenance. Yukhei and Ten traded snarky comments in Slack — _isn’t that just fasting? Yangyang doth protest too much. Spoiler: he is actually the friend —_ and it became a running joke between them throughout the day.

_God that sounds so appealing but I forgot to stare at the sun before it went down today and I’m sf hungry._

_Good thing you can be a part-time breatharian and you can go get takeout._

He ordered a burger and fries from the restaurant down the block and started a load of laundry before putting on his shoes and coat to go get his food. He wished Ten was there; he wondered if he liked truffle fries or if he would order something else, something more health conscious. He _had_ been eating all of those salads. Maybe they could do dinner sometime.

Yukhei knew something was wrong with the elevator around the first and second floor, when it suddenly lurched and bounced.

This, _this_ was his worst nightmare: being caught on an elevator. Being trapped alone, having it fall suddenly to the ground.

He stared at the floor numbers as they flickered back and forth between 2 and 1 and then the elevator bounced again, making a sickening noise. He leaned back against the wall and wondered, briefly, if he should call his mother and then quickly dismissed the thought because the last thing he wanted to do was scare her.

The door didn’t slide open when the elevator finally settled and that was almost worse than the bouncing and jostling. He reached forward and slapped the alarm button but when that illuminated and buzzed only while touched, he felt the panic set in.

What if that was malfunctioning too? What if he couldn’t call for help? He had his phone but in his distress, he couldn’t remember his address. What if they couldn’t get to him in time?

There was another button - a help button - and he pressed it over and over until a recording played, telling him not to panic, that a call was being made. Just as he unhooked his mask from one ear so he could speak clearly, the door opened and Yukhei paused just long enough to make sure it was safe before he shot out into the hall.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” he repeated, barely noticing the couple standing in front of him. “Sorry, sorry. There’s something wrong with the elevator — it wouldn’t open —“

“It’s okay,” a woman said and she held up her hands, as if she was going to comfort him and then they both jerked away.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed, reaching to loop his mask back over his ear. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” the woman repeated.

Yukhei was shaking and he crouched in the hall, then reached for his phone.

“Hello?”

Ten’s voice was like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.

“I just got stuck in the elevator,” Yukhei whispered.

“Oh god, are you okay?”

“I was so scared — I didn’t know if it would fall,” he gasped and rubbed his eyes with his hand. He couldn’t remember when he had started crying. “I can’t breathe. I think I’m having a panic attack.”

“It’s okay, you’re okay now,” Ten said soothingly. “Can you breathe in for me?”

“I don’t know,” Yukhei whimpered.

“Breathe in _now_. Loud, I want to hear it.”

Yukhei inhaled and then exhaled a shuddering breath.

“I’m coming over. Just stay there.”

“No!” He gasped, suddenly scared that Ten would insist on helping him back to his apartment and the elevator really would fall, and then it wouldn’t just be him that got hurt. It’d be Ten, too.

“I can’t hear you breathe. Breathe in again,” Ten commanded and Yukhei could hear a door shut with a sharp slam. He breathed in. “Good. Now hold it while I count. One, two, three, four…”

Ten continued to count in sets of four, his voice becoming breathless at one point.

“I’m at the front door,” he said finally and Yukhei pushed himself to his feet, hanging up the phone without thinking about what he was doing. Ten waved when Yukhei approached the glass door and then, once in the lobby, he tugged Yukhei into his arms.

“Did you run?” Yukhei asked numbly when he realized Ten was panting behind his mask.

“Yeah. You needed me,” Ten responded and Yukhei wrapped himself around Ten tighter, pressing his face into the crook of Ten’s neck.

“I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know who to call.”

“I’m glad you called me.” Ten pulled away just enough so he could look up and then his eyes softened as he saw the tears still caught in Yukhei’s lashes. “It’s okay. You don’t have to cry. You’re safe. Do you think you’re ready to go to your apartment?” When Yukhei hesitated, Ten reached for his hand. “We’ll take the stairs.”

It was a quiet climb up to the third floor but Ten insisted, just as Yukhei thought he would, on making sure he got to his apartment in one piece.

“Do you want to come in?” Yukhei asked as he unlocked the door and began toeing off his shoes, still laced. He didn’t care. He just wanted to sit down.

“Yeah, I can come in for a little bit.”

Once inside, Ten clasped Yukhei by the forearms and guided him toward the couch. “Stay here. I’m going to get you a glass of water.”

“You don’t know where anything is,” Yukhei said softly, watching as Ten took off his mask. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he realized it was the first time he had seen Ten’s face in person.

“I’m pretty sure I can find a kitchen,” Ten teased, reaching down for the loops of Yukhei’s mask and taking it off of him gently. He hadn’t even realized it was still on; his head felt like it was buzzing and his body felt both tense and tired at the same time.

“Glasses are in the middle cabinet.”

When Ten disappeared, Yukhei leaned forward and pressed his face into his hands. This was all, he thought to himself, so embarrassing: being scared of the elevator, calling Ten in tears, making him _run_ to be by his side. Like he was a little kid and not a grown man.

“Here we are,” Ten said in a gentle sing-song voice as he returned, sitting down on the couch next to Yukhei and offering him the glass of ice water. “Take a drink.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Yukhei muttered but he did as he was told.

Ten waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it. I didn’t have anything else going on — I had time to come and save you.”

Yukhei laughed shortly and took another sip before setting the glass down on the coffee table. There was a dull ache on his mouth and he reached up to find a small wound he couldn’t remember getting.

“I think you bit your lip,” Ten said softly. “Let me see.”

Gentle hands tilted Yukhei’s face, to the side and then up; Yukhei watched from beneath his lashes as Ten inspected the cut and then he smiled, soft and small, when Ten clicked his tongue thoughtfully.

“Will I survive?”

“I think so. You should probably stay away from salt and spicy foods tomorrow, though.”

Yukhei grumbled and rolled his eyes. “You’re no fun.”

“Actually, I am a lot of fun,” Ten breathed, his gaze moving from Yukhei’s mouth to his eyes. He smirked and then patted his cheek. “I’m just not a big believer in pain.”

His hands lingered and Yukhei wondered what Ten was thinking. If this were a romantic movie, he would lean in — or Ten would — and they would kiss. Was Ten thinking about the same thing? Would he like that? Probably not with the cut on his lip, he thought and was only a little surprised when he felt disappointed.

“All right. I should be getting home,” Ten said finally and stood. Yukhei followed him as he went to the door.

“Okay. Thank you for, for —“

“Yeah. Anytime.”

“Please don’t take the elevator,” Yukhei blurted out, feeling panic bubble inside his chest again, and Ten’s laughter echoed off the walls of the hallway.

“Trust me, I’m never taking that elevator again in my life. Try to get some rest, puppy. See you tomorrow.”

Yukhei never did go get his dinner. Instead, he crawled into bed and waited for his heart to stop thudding in his chest.

* * *

The next day, Yukhei pinged Ten on Slack: _I owe you._

_You don’t owe me anything._

_I do.  
_ _Seriously._

 _Seriously.  
_ _You don’t._

_Let me make you dinner or something. Since we can’t go out._

_Don’t worry about it. What are friends for?_

Yukhei worried that he had crossed a line with his offer but then, a moment later, Ten pinged: _your voice is nice in person. Without the mask on, I mean._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, wow. Thank you everyone for the kudos. I didn’t know if anyone would read this due to the pandemic setting so it really makes my heart happy to see people enjoying it. 
> 
> I anticipate three more chapters to go but I might post some outtakes/scenes that I couldn’t fit in. I’ll make sure to post an epilogue too.


	6. Chapter 6

_Why aren’t you sleeping?_

_Why aren’t you?_

Yukhei had been up since 4 AM. For the first half hour, he rolled around in his bed, trying his best to find a comfortable position and, somehow, not think hard enough for his mind to fully wake up. It made sense at the time — but he failed miserably, focusing too hard on trying not to focus on anything at all. When it became clear that he wasn’t going to fall back asleep, he reached for his phone and started his daily habit of endlessly scrolling through Instagram.

He hadn’t meant to wake Ten up. All he had done was like and comment on his picture of dinner from the night before, but the alerts must have gone through on his phone and if Yukhei had learned anything from his quarantine-related sleeplessness, it was that a buzzing phone in the middle of the night was the loudest noise in the world.

_You first._

Yukhei smiled and bit his thumbnail before typing: _keeping up with your exploits._

 _Full time job_ , Ten wrote back immediately.  
 _Aren’t you off today? Go back to bed. Sleep in.  
_ _Youths these days, waking up early on their days off._

Yukhei sent a gif of Schmidt yelling “youths!”

_That’s you rn_

_The resemblance is uncanny.  
_ _Seriously though_

Yukhei didn’t want to admit that he woke up early most mornings anyway. Ten would worry and he didn’t want to worry him anymore than he had after the incident with the elevator.

 _I was thinking of going for a drive,_ he texted instead.

_Now?_

_Yeah  
_ _Play hooky with me._

Yukhei expected him to hesitate, to say no, but his phone didn’t even have time to dim before Ten was texting back: _let’s go.  
  
_

* * *

“I made us smoothies,” Ten said in lieu of greeting an hour later, handing Yukhei a travel cup.

Yukhei laughed, pulling Ten into their customary hug with one arm, holding up his smoothie with his free hand. “Why is mine purple?”

“I put blueberries in yours.”

“Where did you get blueberries?”

“Narnia,” Ten snapped, his gaze suddenly anywhere other than Yukhei’s face. “Where do you think? The store. I bought them.”

“You don’t like fruit,” Yukhei pointed out.

“Look, do you want it or not?”

There was a faint blush on Ten’s face, visible where his mask cut away, but Yukhei couldn’t tell if it was from the cold from his walk over or their conversation. He wondered if he traced his finger over the bridge of his nose, would Ten blush harder?

 _He would_ , Yukhei thought, _wouldn’t he?_ And it took every ounce of strength to keep his hands to himself.

“I do! I do,” Yukhei said with a grin and took a sip before dramatically humming, eyes wide with feigned surprise. “So _good_ ,” he teased and then cackled as Ten smacked his arm.

“I hate you,” Ten muttered into his smoothie.

“Nah,” Yukhei said breezily, reaching for his mask.

It was still early and dark as they walked through his building’s second-floor parking garage. Yukhei’s car had been a gift when he graduated high school. He was, after all, his parents’ first born, their baby all grown up, and his mother had insisted, arguing that she wouldn’t be able to take care of him, so he had better have a safe car to get him around. Yukhei, in turn, took very good care of his car.

“I think this is the cleanest car I’ve ever seen. Do you even drive it?” Ten asked as he settled into his seat. His mask was off now and he held his travel mug close to his body, as if he were afraid he would suddenly lose control of his hands and spill it all over the spotless interior.

“Yeah. There’s, like, nothing else to do on the weekends though, you know?” Yukhei put the keys into the ignition and shrugged.

“So you obsessively vacuum your car?”

“Something like that.”

“Please feel free to extend your obsession to my car. I haven’t cleaned it out in months.”

“Sure,” Yukhei said as he pulled out of the parking spot and made his way toward the ramp.

It was a nice thought. His dad was the person who took care of those sorts of things, keeping his mother’s car clean, taking it to get the oil change, to get new tires. He liked the idea of doing that for his… his…

Well, his wife, he supposed.

“What’re you thinking about?”

“All the ways I’m going to clean your car,” Yukhei drawled, winking at Ten just because he knew it would make him laugh. When the blush returned instead, Yukhei felt a giddiness shoot through him that made his fingers tingle and he wanted nothing more than to bottle that little bit of lightning.

Yukhei let Ten pick the music, handing him his iPhone. Ten seemed surprised and then pleased when Yukhei gave him the pin so he wouldn’t have to worry every time he wanted to change the song. What was he going to do? Read his texts?

“You and my mom are the only people I message these days,” he said as he took a turn.

They drove through the suburbs and then, eventually, hit the countryside. Yukhei had driven this way countless times; in the summertime, when the fields were tall and golden, he would stop along the side of the road and watch the wheat wave in the wind. It was too dark, still, but he imagined taking this drive with Ten next summer. He’d show him where the quietest place along the river was. Maybe they’d even go swimming.

He let himself imagine Ten, sprawled on a blanket in the shade. He let himself imagine a dog, something small but fearless, something that would jump into the river right after him.

Yukhei cleared his throat and took another turn, onto the road that would lead them to the peak. “Do you like animals?”

Ten laughed. “What do you mean? What kind of animals? Like lions?”

“No,” Yukhei said, turning briefly so he could stick out his tongue at him. “I mean, like cats. Or dogs. Have you ever had a pet?”

“We had a family cat when I was a little kid. I was kind of thinking of getting one this year, you know, after my break-up. When I realized I wasn’t going back to the office anytime soon.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Ten shrugged. “It seemed like a big decision to make on my own.”

Yukhei nodded slowly. The road was curvier and he used that as an excuse for the pause before his next question. “Did you and your ex ever think about getting a pet?”

“He said we could get fish once,” Ten said, looking out the passenger side window.

“Fish?” Yukhei repeated, making a face. “Weird pet.”

“Hey! Fish are cool,” Ten protested, straightening out in his chair. “What do you have against fish?”

“I mean, nothing. They’re probably great — if you’re someone who doesn’t like being touched. I like fluffy pets. Something I can cuddle. I’m glad you’re not dating that guy. He can’t hurt you anymore,” Yukhei joked lightly.

Ten smiled and then looked back out the window.

“That’s not why we broke up.”

Yukhei opened his mouth to say something but then stopped. Of course it wasn’t. They had never really talked about Ten’s break-up with Johnny before. If he was comfortable now, Yukhei wanted to make sure he didn’t give him any reason to feel like he couldn’t open up.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asked finally.

Ten didn’t respond right away and Yukhei took his eyes off the road for just a moment to gauge his expression.

“We don’t have to.”

“It’s fine,” Ten murmured. “We used to work together. We didn’t really talk about it — I thought he just didn’t want to tell HR. After he took another job, I thought that we’d, you know, move in together. Tell people.” Ten bit his bottom lip and shrugged again. “It felt like he was ashamed of me.”

Yukhei blinked. “Why would he be ashamed of you?”

“I don’t know,” Ten said, his voice wavering. Yukhei had never heard him sound so sad. “Maybe there’s something wrong with me?”

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Yukhei said firmly. He glanced over and then reached for Ten’s hand, squeezing gently. “You can’t really think that.”

Ten threaded his fingers with Yukhei’s and squeezed back.

“Sometimes I do. Sometimes I worry that there’s something really wrong with me, and I don’t see it. But he did.” He inhaled a shuddering breath and then exhaled with a forced laugh. “It’s fucked up, huh?”

“I get it. But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Absolutely — Ten, you’re fucking amazing. You know what everyone says about you? All I ever hear is how smart you are. How you’re this genius and how you’re the kindest person they know”

Ten ducked behind the sleeve of his free hand. “Shut up.”

“Seriously. People love you. I’m sorry he couldn’t. Maybe he did, but I’m sorry he couldn’t love you the way you deserve.”

Yukhei knew he was speaking fiercely — he could hear it and part of him was surprised. But he felt very single word all the way to his bones. He had never been more sure of anyone’s worth. Ten was special. Fuck anyone who didn’t see it.

“I think you’re amazing, too,” Ten said softly and he covered their clasped hands with his his free hand, his thumb stroking Yukhei’s skin.

The sun was nearly up by the time they reached the top of the mountain and Yukhei pulled off the road at the lookout. It was cold outside and Ten zipped up his jacket before pulling his hands into his sleeves.

“It’s pretty up here,” he said, his breath coming out in small puffs. “Do you come here a lot?”

“Yeah.” Yukhei smiled. From up here, he could see the entire valley on a clear day, but he liked it even better when the cloud cover below reminded him of the ocean.

Yukhei looked over to Ten. His face was illuminated by the rising sun and he was, truly, lovely. Breathtakingly so. Yukhei had never met someone as lovely and brilliant as him and his heart hurt at the thought of Ten doubting himself, even for a moment.

Ten caught him staring. “What?” He asked, tilting his head.

“Nothing.”

“No,” he said teasingly, drawing out the syllable. “What is it?”

“Can I tell you something?”

“Yeah. Always.”

Yukhei hesitated, worrying his lip, and then: “it’s my birthday.”

Ten’s eyes widened with surprise. “Today?”

“Yeah. Hey —!” Yukhei yelped as Ten shoved him.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Ten gave him another shove.

“I’m telling you now!” Yukhei said with a laugh, pushing back. He was careful, he knew that he was bigger and stronger, and he didn’t want to hurt Ten, especially while playing around.

“But I didn’t get you a gift! I didn’t know!” Ten went to give him another push but Yukhei grabbed both of his hands, effectively disarming him. “You’re the worst,” he grumbled.

“I thought I was _amazing_. Changed your mind already?” Yukhei grinned. Using his grasp on his hands, he tugged Ten close and wrapped his arms around him in a hug. “You don’t have to get me a gift. I’m just glad you’re here. I was afraid I’d have to spend my birthday alone.”

“I’m always going to be here,” Ten said, his voice muffled by Yukhei’s chest. “You’re still the worst. You’re just old now, too.”

Yukhei tightened his arms around Ten, his cheek resting against the top of his head. “I can live with that.”

* * *

Ten texted later, while Yukhei was on a Zoom call with his parents.

“Look at that smile,” his mother teased. “Who is on the phone?”

“ _Mom_ ,” Yukhei groaned, turning over his phone and hiding his face in his hands. It didn’t matter, though; they couldn’t hide his grin. “Just a friend,” he said finally.

His mother didn’t buy it for a minute, but it was his birthday and her gift to him was to let it drop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will have mature content.


	7. Chapter 7

Ten wasn’t really his friend, was he?

The thought looped in his mind, invading every free moment. When he was cooking dinner or doing the laundry, it echoed in his head: _not a friend, not a friend, not my friend_. He could hear himself say the words to his mother while he was falling asleep — “just a friend” — and it felt like his whole body would reject it. He’d toss and turn in his bed, get up to crack the window, play with the blinds so that the reflection of the light of the pool on the downstairs apartment deck danced on his ceiling. And then, just when he thought he had found peace, the thought would return: _he’s not a friend, he’s not my friend_.

He was, in a word, more. But the sort of more that bloomed and glowed. Ten was the kaleidoscope of colors Yukhei saw when he pressed against his eyelids. He was the first breath of air after falling flat on his back while trying to do a handstand, gasping and sweeter than it had any right to be. He was the night sky the first time Yukhei had gone camping, far, far away from the light pollution of the city. Ten was each and every star that Yukhei had never realized existed, and the knowledge that there were more that he couldn’t see.

Yukhei thought, without any hint of melodrama or shame, that he understood the concept of infinity now; he loved and he loved, and then, somehow, just when he thought he had reached the limit, there was more love to feel and to give.

It seemed unfathomable that he could ever express it in words that did it justice. So he bit his tongue and stayed quiet and hoped that Ten could see in the way he looked at him and could feel it when he held him, and he hoped that he was wrong and someday the words would come.

* * *

_dude_ , Yangyang pinged him early on Wednesday morning.

 _you never call  
_ _you never write  
_ _you never want to play nightcrawlers with me anymore  
_ _what the fuck_

Yukhei groaned and pulled his beanie down over his eyes. It had been hard to balance friendships lately, with so much of his time spent either with Ten or thinking about Ten. He hadn’t meant to allow his friendship with Yangyang fall to the wayside but that was exactly what had happened.

 _I know. I’m sorry.  
_ _I’ve been busy._

 _with what? your quilting?  
_ _c’mon_

 _I’ve had a lot going on outside of work,_ he wrote after a moment.  
 _I’ve been a shitty friend to you and I am sorry.  
_ _I will try harder now and in the future._

Yukhei could see that Yangyang was typing and then stopped. And then, finally: _it’s cool, everything ok?_

 _Yeah,_ Yukhei wrote back. _Just life shit._

That wasn’t the best way to put it but he didn’t want Yangyang to push and he didn’t want to lie. It was the easiest excuse.

 _i know that you and ten are like bosom buddies or whatever but if you ever need to talk  
_ _lmk  
_ _even though i hate you now_

Yukhei laughed. _I deserve it._

_YOU DO_

_Can I tell you a secret?  
_ _I had to google “bosom”_

 _fucking amazing  
_ _on your work machine too  
_ _i love this for you_

A few minutes later, Ten pinged Yukhei: _what’re you doing tonight?_

_Nothing, why? Want to go on a walk?_

_Actually, I wanted to know if you wanted to watch a movie. I can make dinner._

Yukhei felt like a little kid, giddy and anxious.

 _Yeah, cool  
_ _You don’t have to do all of the cooking though  
_ _My parents did teach me basic survival skills_

 _Bless_ , Ten wrote back. _I think I've got it covered.  
_ _7 PM?_

_See you then._

* * *

Yukhei was early but good god, had he tried to kill time. At some point, there just wasn’t anything else to do at his apartment other than pace the floor and he desperately wanted to maintain his relationship with his downstair neighbors, who he suspected could hear every time he was lazy and scooted his way into the kitchen on his computer chair. He considered going around the park but as ridiculous as it sounded, that felt wrong now, without Ten. Besides, it was windy and raining and he had actually done something worthwhile to his hair.

Ten didn’t seem to mind, though, when he showed up at his door ten minutes before 7 PM. In fact, he seemed delighted and Yukhei filed the memory of his happy face away to think about later, when he couldn’t sleep and staring at the ceiling lost its novelty.

“Did you even start dinner?” Yukhei asked once they made it into the kitchen.

“No,” Ten admitted with a grin, shaking his hair out of his eyes. “I was waiting for you to get here. I thought it’d be more fun to have you keep me company. Do want a drink? There’s beer in the fridge.”

“Yeah, I’ll grab a beer. Do you want anything?”

Ten gestured to a wine glass on the counter. There was a kiss of Ten’s lip balm around the rim and Yukhei let himself wonder, briefly, if it tasted of peppermint. “I’m good,” he said.

Their conversation wandered as Ten worked and Yukhei drank. They touched on their project once, but only to laugh at Taeil’s not-so-quiet meltdown as it became overabundantly clear that very few of his recommendations had gone into the overhaul. For the most part, however, they talked about life: how it had been growing up, what they wanted to do when the pandemic was over. Ten wanted to travel, he wanted to see his parents, but worried that everyone would have the same idea and there would be crowds.

“Once they’ve told you that it’s not safe to be around so many people, how do you go back?” He asked, grinding sea salt into a mixing bowl, then giving it one last shake to get any loose crystals.

Yukhei’s nerves insisted that he finish his beer quickly and then he went for another. Ten joined him with another pour of wine and Yukhei lingered at the counter, leaning against it.

“Hey, when did you come out to your parents? Is that —“ Was that too personal? Yukhei stumbled over himself, realizing suddenly that it may have been rude to ask. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

Ten laughed and shook his head, his focus lifting briefly from his work on the shrimp. “It’s okay. You’re fine, puppy. I came out when I was sixteen.”

Yukhei nodded and took another drink from his beer, before asking: “how did they react?”

“You know, they weren’t surprised at all.” He grinned up at Yukhei and shrugged. “I never was interested in girls. I had female friends but it never went deeper than that. My mom said that she knew years before I said anything — I wish she had said something to _me_. It would have saved me a lot of angst.”

With the shrimp now marinating in the bowl, Ten moved on to the vegetables, neatly and quickly chopping them. Yukhei watched intently and then looked away when he found himself worried over the safety of Ten’s fingertips. 

“It’s nice that they were cool with it. My parents would probably be the same way,” he said casually.

“Yeah?” Ten asked, still focusing on the green beans. “You mean, if you came out?”

There was a sudden undercurrent of tension, of expectation in the room that Yukhei, a beer and a half in, couldn’t fully understand.

“Yeah. I mean, my mom’s always saying how she just wants me to meet a nice person. I don’t know if she has ever really cared who that person is. So long as I’m happy.”

Ten looked up from the cutting board and gave him a long, thoughtful look.

“What?” Yukhei finally asked.

“Nothing,” he said softly and then nudged into Yukhei. “You’re blocking the stovetop. Move out of the way, you fucking giant.”

* * *

“I am so tired,” Ten, his voice breathy and whiny. It wasn’t late but they had both had another drink each through dinner and then piled onto the couch, a slightly drunken mess, to watch the movie.

“I can go,” Yukhei offered. He was tired, too, from work and the alcohol and he started to stand up from the couch but stopped when Ten reached for him.

“No! No, it’s okay. I want to finish the movie. I’m just —“ He stuck his tongue out at Yukhei, somehow still cheeky despite his fatigue, “I’m going to lean on you, if that’s okay.”

It felt like fireworks were going off in Yukhei’s chest and he grinned, making himself more comfortable on the couch, his arms open to Ten as he scooted closer. “Yeah, for sure. Live your cozy truth.”

Ten was soft and warm; his head went to rest on the shelf of Yukhei’s shoulder, face tucking into his neck, and he pulled his knees up on the couch. Wordlessly, Yukhei offered Ten his hand, just as he did on their walks, and they thread their fingers together. After a while — and he didn’t know how long, he was actively trying to not keep track of each passing minute Ten was cuddled into him — Yukhei could hear his breathing slow as he fell asleep and he, too, closed his eyes, letting his cheek settle against Ten’s messy black hair.

 _Just for a moment_ , he told himself. He just wanted to enjoy this moment.

When he opened his eyes again, the movie had stopped and was cycling through the menu screen. The digital clock on the DVD player read 3:30 and he startled. They both had to be up in a few hours.

He hadn’t meant to fall asleep and he certainly hadn’t meant to rest his hand on Ten’s leg but here they were, on the couch, his fingers splayed across his thigh. Yukhei could feel the warmth of his body, the hint of strong muscle through the black denim and he rubbed his thumb over Ten’s leg gently.

“Mm?” Ten hummed, stirring as he felt Yukhei move.

“Shh,” Yukhei whispered back, doing his best to extract himself both the couch and Ten’s arm, which had wrapped around his waist sometime during the night, without waking him up. It was no use, though: Ten shifted and then his eyes opened.

“What time is it?”

“Almost four.”

“Shit,” Ten breathed, rubbing his face with both hands before sitting up. “Sorry. I fell asleep.”

“It’s okay. I did too.” Yukhei stood up from the couch and started looking for a blanket for Ten. “Go back to bed. I can let myself out.”

“Wait.” Ten reached for his hand and squeezed his fingers gently. “Stay? Please? You can sleep here. Take my bed.”

God, every part of him wanted to stay.

“I should go,” he whispered but found himself crouching down next to the couch, tugging a throw pillow over for Ten to use in his absence. “Lay back down.”

Ten did as he was told and Yukhei pulled the blanket up, Ten’s dark eyes watching his face intently. “Thank you,” he murmured when Yukhei finished tucking him in.

“Don’t thank me,” Yukhei said with a soft laugh. “I’m the one who woke you up.” His hand smoothed over the blanket and then he leaned forward before he could help himself and pressed his lips to Ten’s temple. “Go back to bed. I’ll see you at work.”

It was a short walk home and with it being so early, there were no cars to look out for. Which, honestly, was a blessing as Yukhei was so lost in his thoughts, he stepped out into the road and was halfway across before he realized he hadn’t looked both ways. Or even just one way.

_Stay._

Ten wanted him to stay and all he could think about was what Ten’s bed would have felt like. He wondered what kind of blankets he had, if the mattress was firm or soft. If it smelled like him, that rich cologne he wore sometimes, or something sweeter.

_Stay._

Would Ten have stayed out in the living room or would Yukhei have insisted that they share the bed, starting out on far sides before gravitating closer, closer, until Yukhei was tucked up behind him, holding him against his chest? Yukhei let out a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding and fumbled in his pockets for his keys, letting himself into his apartment door.

_Stay._

Ten would have fit so perfectly in his arms. He imagined kissing the nape of his neck. He imagined his hands beginning to wander and he could hear the soft sigh in the dark. Yukhei had never been with a man before but it didn’t matter: he knew his hands would know where to go and what to do to make Ten shake for him.

He wanted that so badly. He wished he had stayed.

Yukhei pulled off his shirt and left it in the hall where it fell. In the bathroom, he turned on the shower, stripped out of the rest of his clothes, and climbed under the spray of water. It was too hot but he didn’t care; one hand braced himself on the tile wall and the other reached for his cock. It took just a few strokes for him to come and he bit his bottom lip as Ten flickered through his mind. Yukhei tipped forward and rested his forehead against the back of his hand, and it was only when he was that close to the wall that he could hear his panting.

* * *

Yukhei didn’t bother trying to go back to sleep after his shower and the first few hours of work were rough. He was tired but not only that, his mind returned to Ten and the continuous questions of _what if._

By afternoon stand-up, Yukhei was running on fumes.

_Are you okay?_

The alert banner from Ten’s ping scrolled across the screen and Yukhei nodded, knowing that he could see it, before he clicked over to respond.

_Yeah. No worries. Didn’t get a lot of sleep._

_Sorry again._

“Yukhei? Does he have us on mute?”

“What? No,” he responded quickly, looking to the monitor where the Zoom call was pulled up. “Sorry. Regular day.”

A few people laughed.

“You look exhausted,” Yangyang teased. “Late night with a cute neighbor?”

“Dude!” Someone else chimed in. “Yangyang literally took the harassment training and then decided to ignore every word.”

Yukhei laughed, tugging on his earlobe anxiously, and then he shook his head. From the corner of eye, he caught Ten’s expression and he felt his stomach knot: Ten looked confused. And hurt, he realized.

“No, no.”

“Yeah. Okay. Sure,” Yangyang said. He didn’t sound convinced.

“I didn’t know Yukhei had a cute neighbor,” Ten piped up, his voice sounding sweeter and higher than normal.

Yukhei racked his brain to figure out who Yangyang was referencing and he could only settle on the girl with the puppy the hallway over. Yukhei had sent a Yangyang picture of her holding the little pug like a baby — cleverly, he thought, captioned “weekend pupdate” — but there was nothing going on with her. She had barely warranted a passing thought lately.

“Yang, seriously.”

He was making it worse. There was no _real_ reason for him not clarify that he had just been spending time with Ten, that they had dinner and watched a movie, but he froze up and couldn’t find the words in time and the team moved on. Ten was looking away from the screen when Yukhei glanced over toward his square. Then, the cam dropped and Ten was writing in the chat box: _sorry, personal call. BRB_

He didn’t return by the time the Zoom ended. 

_Hey,_ Yukhei wrote. _I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to say something._

_About what?_

_Last night?_

_Why would you say something about last night??  
_ _It was nothing_

Yukhei’s hands froze over the keyboard for a moment. He didn’t know what to say; he didn’t know if he should just stop. He tried again.

_Are you mad?_

_Why would I be mad_

“Fuck,” Yukhei muttered to himself.

 _Idk  
_ _Walk tonight?_

No response.


	8. Chapter 8

On Wednesday morning, Yukhei pinged Ten: _I’m sorry._

Thursday afternoon, at lunch, Yukhei texted him on his phone: _Ten, I’m sorry._

Friday, after work: _Ten?_

On Saturday, Yukhei said nothing at all.

He had laundry to do, dishes to put into the dishwasher, a shopping list half-completed and he was running out of groceries, but none of it seemed important enough to get out of bed for. He slept, mostly; when Netflix paused whatever he had playing in the background, the silence of his apartment would wake up him and he would reach over to his nightstand, unlock his iPad, restart whatever episode had been playing, and wait to fall back asleep.

On Sunday morning, he considered pinging Kun on Slack about taking Monday off. Headache, he’d say. A migraine. Something that he could wave off on Tuesday, when he hoped that he would feel better — or less empty. By lunchtime, he knew he had to do _something_ , but then, mercifully, his phone buzzed.

 _Sorry_ , Ten wrote. _I had some stuff going on._

_It’s okay. Are you okay?_

_Yeah._

_I was worried. I’m sorry. I fucked up._

_It’s okay. Don’t worry about me._

Yukhei frowned at his phone.

_Why wouldn’t I worry about you?_

_I’m a big kid.  
I can take care of myself.  
Don’t worry._

_Okay_ , Yukhei wrote and then rolled over in bed, leaving the phone on the mattress behind him.

It buzzed again.

 _Do you want to go for a walk tonight?_ Ten wrote. _We can do dinner after._

 _Yeah. I’d really like that._ Yukhei hesitated and then: _I missed you._

_Usual time?_

_Yeah. I’ll be there._

* * *

Something was still off. Yukhei did his best to ignore it and he powered through the quiet moments. He told Ten about his call with his parents; he asked about how Ten’s parents were and he nodded enthusiastically, asking questions he hoped would keep Ten talking. When that didn’t work, he starting talking about things no one in their right mind would care about.

“I got a new frying pan.”

“Mm,” Ten hummed.

“It works too well.”

Ten’s brows furrowed behind his glasses. “It works too well?”

“My other frying pan —“

“Do you just have the one?” Ten asked.

“Yes,” Yukhei said, suddenly feeling sort of stupid. At least Ten was talking, though. He was willing to sound stupid if it got Ten talking. “When I moved into my apartment, I figured, hey. It’s just me. If I need to do more cooking, I’ll just wash it. Anyway, I got this super cheap frying pan and it’s been slowly warping to the point that it barely sits flat.”

“That happens.”

“Well, I didn’t know that.”

“That’s why you shouldn’t buy cheap cookware.”

“No one told me that!” Yukhei put his hands up in mock exasperation. “So I bought this new frying pan and I think I need to return it.”

They crossed the road, looping back toward Ten’s apartment.

“Why?”

“Because it’s too good. It distributes the heat too well and I’ve been burning everything.”

Ten laughed, and it was like music to Yukhei’s ears. He kept going: “this whole time I’ve been cooking with this shitty pan and overcompensating for how bad it is, and now I look away for two seconds, to get salt or something, and I go back and everything is burned to hell.”

“You should definitely return it,” Ten said, the hint of a smile ghosting over his lips. “When they ask you why, tell them it’s just too good.”

“I can’t handle it,” Yukhei groaned. “I’m so hungry.”

“Poor puppy,” Ten murmured and, for a moment at least, Yukhei thought everything would be okay.

Back at Ten’s house, they cooked together. Ten warmed up slowly but by the time they finished dinner, they were joking and laughing together, just like they had before. They flirted casually and when Yukhei covered Ten’s hand with his, Ten shifted only so that he could squeeze his fingers. Yukhei’s heart gave a hopeful leap. It would be all right, wouldn’t it? They could move past Yukhei’s mistake. They could keep going and it would all be all right.

After dinner, Yukhei stacked all of the dishes and brought them to the kitchen, Ten close behind two wine glasses in one hand and the used silverware in the other.

“You don’t have to do that, puppy,” Ten protested as Yukhei started to rinse off their dishes and load the dishwasher. “I can do it later.”

“What kind of guest would I be if I didn’t help you clean up?” Yukhei took the wine glasses from Ten and gave him his best smile, tilting his head in what he hoped was a charming way, all to distract Ten from chasing him away from the sink.

It worked.

“Those are hand-washed. Don’t put them in the dishwasher.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. How do you wash your wine glasses?”

“Everything goes in the dishwasher at my place.”

Ten laughed, his hand moving to rest on Yukhei’s arm. The hold was gentle and then his fingers tightened slightly, instead of letting go. “Were you raised by wolves?”

“Maybe,” Yukhei quipped, then stuck out his tongue, only glancing away so that he could find the sponge and begin to wash up. “I am a puppy, after all.”

“You are.”

“Your puppy,” he added as he rinsed off the glasses and then set them aside before rinsing off his hands and turning off the water.

“ _My_ puppy,” Ten agreed, his voice soft, almost thoughtful.

He was watching Yukhei carefully, with those dark eyes, his bottom lip caught between his teeth. The wine had brought a sweet flush to his cheeks and Yukhei had the realization that he had never seen someone look so beautiful in his life. In that same moment that Yukhei decided to go for the kiss, and he leaned down.

“Wait. We can’t do this,” Ten said, surprising him by taking a step back, pulling his hand away.

Yukhei blinked. Had he completely misread the energy between them? It seemed impossible, not when they were standing so close, Ten’s hand lingering on his arm long after the joke.

“Why not? Because we’re coworkers? Can’t we —“ he tried, hoping that it was just caution and not disinterest, but was cut off by a short, mirthless laugh, so completely unlike the laughter earlier.

“No. This,” Ten gestured between them, “this isn’t real, Yukhei. Not really. You’re just lonely — and I don’t want to be some straight guy’s quarantine hook-up.”

Yukhei could feel his blood rushing in his ears. “Is that what you think I want?”

“Yeah.” Ten’s tone wavered slightly but his sharp gaze stayed true. “I think that once everything is back to normal, you’re going to go back.”

“Back to what?”

“Back to whoever you were before this.”

Yukhei jolted as if he has been slapped. Was that who Ten thought he really was? After all of this time, after all of those conversations. Did he really think he would use and then discard someone? Yukhei felt suddenly sick to his stomach. 

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” he whispered after a moment. “I would never do that to you.”

“You don’t know that. You think if we hadn’t gone into quarantine and you could have stayed, living your life just like you were before, that we would have become close? Friends, sure — we work together so that makes sense. But do you really think you’d feel this way about me, in any other situation?”

Yukhei didn’t have an answer. Maybe Ten was right about that, maybe they wouldn’t have become close friends, they probably wouldn’t spend evenings walking and talking, learning about each other, but did that mean that his feelings, now, were less sincere?

“You can say that about any relationship, Ten. You can say that about any life event. If I hadn’t gotten this job, if I had gone to another school, if anything had been different,we never would have met. But we did and we, we —“

“No,” Ten said firmly. “I’m sorry. No.”

They stood in silence for a while before Yukhei raked his hand through his hair, looking away. It hurt too much to meet Ten’s eyes.

“Why did you do this?” He asked, voice hardly more than a whisper.

“Why did I do what? What am I doing, Yukhei?”

“Why did you invite me here? Why did you ask me to come over?”

“Because we’re friends. Because we can be friends.”

“Why would you want to be friends with me if that’s who you think I am?” Yukhei could hear his voice become louder and he hated it, he never wanted to yell at someone, least of all Ten, but the ache in his chest had taken over. “If that’s what you think of me, why the fuck would you want me around? That’s — that’s _gross_. That’s disgusting! You think I would do that?”

“I think you’re lonely,” Ten repeated, his hands clenched at his sides. “I think —“

“I shouldn’t be here then! You shouldn’t want someone like that as a friend,” Yukhei snapped, cutting him off. “I should _go_.”

Ten didn’t respond and Yukhei felt all of the fight drain out of him.

“Okay. Okay, have a good night,” Yukhei managed to say before bolting to the door.

* * *

On Sunday evening, just before midnight, Yukhei pinged Kun on Slack.

 _I’d like to talk to you about switching partners.  
_ _I think I should work with someone else._


	9. Chapter 9

Yukhei met with Kun on Monday morning. He kept his request brief and to the point; when Kun asked him to clarify _why_ , he told him that he thought it would be beneficial for him and his career to continue learning from other engineers on the team. There were multiple ways to skin a cat, Yukhei said. He wanted to master them all.

“We don’t usually do this mid-project,” Kun said, looking into his monitor intently, as if waiting for further explanation.

Yukhei didn’t take the bait. “I think I need to advocate for myself here,” he said. “I want to keep growing.”

Kun said that he would talk to members on the team and see if they would be open to switching partners and just before Tuesday morning stand-up, he pinged Yukhei to let him know that he had shifted Yangyang to the plugin with Ten and that Yukhei would be working with him.

 _I’m hurting him_ , Yukhei thought when he saw Ten’s face on Zoom. His normal brilliant, easy smile was gone; instead, he looked drawn and tired, his long eyelashes obscuring his gaze as he kept his head down. _I’m hurting him_.

But he didn’t know what to do or how to make it better. If Ten truly, sincerely thought he was just in it to fuck and run — well, Ten didn’t need someone like that in his life. And Yukhei didn’t want to be friends with someone who thought so poorly of him.

 _I hurt too_. _He’s hurting me too_.

The next day, Ten called out of work. Yukhei wasn’t surprised — he was barely present and it was a relief that Kun was dictating to him, all he had to do was keep typing — but he did worry when he called out a second day. He briefly considered texting him to make sure he was okay. It would cross a line, though, he thought.

Ten was a big kid, he had told Yukhei. He could take care of himself.

Yukhei hated that this was what it had become.

* * *

_dude,_ Yangyang pinged him mid-day on Friday.  
 _i’m so fucking blocked on this plugin code and ten is sick_

_What’s up?  
How can I help?_

_you wanna be my rubber duck_

_It would be an honor_ , Yukhei pinged back and when Yangyang dropped a Zoom link into their conversation, he joined.

“Hey, so I lied,” Yangyang said as soon as the audio and video were connected.

Yukhei laughed shortly. “What? What did you lie about?”

“This plugin shit is easy to fix. I don’t know what you guys have been doing this whole time.” Yangyang paused, waiting for Yukhei to confess that half of the time, they were just fucking around, joking and flirting, but just as he done with Kun, Yukhei said nothing. “Okay, well, let me tell you what I think you’ve been doing: I think you and Ten have a thing — or had a thing.”

Yukhei stayed quiet but he could see his expression on the monitor.

“Awesome,” Yangyang said with a nod. “So what happened?”

“Nothing happened.”

“Clearly something happened. We don’t switch partners mid-project, dude, but now here I am, working on this plugin and Ten’s clearly avoiding you and calling out of work —“

“It’s not my fault!” Yukhei snapped, his voice louder than he expected.

Yangyang’s brows lifted. “I didn’t say it was. But I don’t know what happened or what’s going on.”

“Why do you care?”

“Dude,” Yangyang said softly. “Because we’re friends.”

Yukhei put his head into his hands, his fingers curling into his hair, tight enough for it to hurt, then let go. He didn’t know where or how to start but now that the floodgates were open, it felt like wave after wave of hurt kept crashing down on him. His eyes burned with tears and he laughed at himself, rubbing them away.

“Sorry,” Yukhei muttered.

“It’s okay. I read that when you cry, it releases oxytocin and endorphins and decreases cortisol and toxic masculinity. That’s why you feel better afterwards.” Yangyang leaned in closer to his screen, his chin propped up on his palm. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“He thinks I am a terrible person,” Yukhei said, his misery clear in his voice.

“Why would he think that?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t do anything. All I did was — was —“ Yukhei fumbled for words. All he had done was love him, he thought. Quietly and gently, the best that he could.

Yangyang nodded and then took a deep breath, looking away from the monitor. “You know, the break-up with Johnny was really hard for him.”

Yukhei blinked. “You knew about that?”

“I mean, yeah,” Yangyang said with a laugh. “I know I play an idiot on the internet but I hope you don’t actually believe it. We all knew. Just like we all know about you guys. It’s just not, you know, any of our business. You guys are happy and that’s what matters. I mean, you _were_ happy. I guess everything went to shit?”

“We fought over the weekend,” Yukhei admitted. If they all knew, what was the point in pretending? “He said that he didn’t want to be some straight guy’s quarantine hook-up. He said I’m just lonely.”

“Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Are you lonely?”

“Yes. Aren’t you?”

“I’ve been doing pretty good, actually, but I’m a weirdo. Are you straight?” Yangyang asked, his voice gentler than Yukhei had ever heard it. “Straight, bisexual, gay — I literally don’t care. But I’m not in love with you so it doesn’t effect me one way or another. Ten is very clearly in love with you, so I imagine that matters to him. A lot.”

“I don’t think I am,” Yukhei said after a moment. “Did you ever feel like... everything was pre-planned for you? Like, you’d go to school and you’d get a job, and then meet someone and you’d just happily ever after?”

“Yeah.”

“Until I met Ten, I just assumed it would be with a woman.” Yukhei shrugged and looked down. “Because that’s what everyone else imagined for me. It didn’t sound like a bad plan. It wasn’t exciting or anything, but…”

“But not a bad plan,” Yangyang said with a nod. “Does it sound like a bad plan now?”

“It doesn’t sound like the right one. It feels like it doesn’t make sense for me.” Yukhei glanced back up. “When I imagine that with Ten, it makes sense. It feels right. I want something that feels right.”

“Have you told Ten, you know, _any_ of this?”

“No. I guess I kind of hoped he knew.”

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Yangyang said immediately.

“Hey!”

“No, dude. Seriously. I think you’re great but you’re an idiot. Why would he know any of this without you telling him? Osmosis? Are you having him read your tea leaves and hoping it spells it out for him? Jesus,” Yangyang sighed and rubbed his temples with his fingers, as if Yukhei was giving him a headache.

He probably was.

“Did Ten tell you that Johnny wouldn’t let him tell anyone? I honestly thought it was just because he didn’t want things to be weird on the team. Maybe that’s why I tried so hard to just be chill and cool about it, like, ’no issue here, you guys could literally get married in the kitchen and it’s all going to be cool with us.’ But then he got a new job and it was the exact same thing. I remember, just before quarantine, we all went over for game night. And it was super tense, Johnny was being super aloof, like Ten was just a former co-worker and not, you know, his boyfriend. Ten was _crushed_.”

Yukhei’s heart hurt for Ten, but —

“I wouldn’t do that to him,” he said firmly.

“How does he know that? He obviously didn’t think Johnny would do that either and he did. Ten knew Johnny longer, they were friends before they started dating.”

And they had been dating a long time, Yukhei remembered. Two and a half years was a long time, longer than any of Yukhei’s relationships in high school and college.

“Look,” Yangyang started, and then paused, looking like he was trying to decide exactly what he wanted to say and how to say it. “Look, you need to realize that this isn’t just about you. Everyone brings their past experiences with them. Love is fucking scary, even during the best of times — and we’re definitely not in the best of times. Pandemic?” He added, gesturing with his hands.

“You’re right,” Yukhei said finally.

“Yeah,” Yangyang said with a shrug. “I know.”

* * *

It was raining but Yukhei had come to prefer taking his walks in the rain: it was always quieter in the neighborhood, there were less people on the sidewalks, and he could pull his mask down around his chin and breathe in the fresh air. He walked slowly up the street, following the sidewalk as it curved back around, past the park. At the stop sign, he made his usual turn and then stopped.

Ten was wearing his mask but Yukhei knew it was him, just like he knew he should say something. But did Ten even want to hear it? He sighed, nodded in greeting, and then turned to take the long way home in the opposite direction.

“Yukhei,” Ten called from across the street. “Please don’t walk away. Yukhei?”

When Yukhei turned, he could see that Ten had pulled his mask down around his chin and he was rocking back and forth on his feet anxiously.

“Yukhei, I miss you. I miss you so much. I miss you every day. I just,” Ten raked both hands through his wet hair. “I think about you all of the time.”

Yukhei felt his chest tighten and he looked down at his shoes.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you how I felt. I should have told you a long time ago. I’m sorry if I did something that made you think that is who I am —“ Yukhei started, just loud enough to be heard but Ten cut him off.

“No, I’m sorry. Yukhei, I’m sorry.” There was a break in his voice and he paused, taking in a deep breath. He was crying, now, and Yukhei’s heart thudded painfully in his chest. “I know you wouldn’t do that to me. I’m sorry. I miss you. I love you. I got scared. I’m sorry, Yukhei. I got scared —“

It took just a few steps for Yukhei to close the distance between them and then he had Ten wrapped in his arms, holding him close. Ten’s fingers closed on the back of his jacket fiercely and he pressed his face into Yukhei’s chest.

“Shh,” Yukhei hushed him gently. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m sorry, Ten. I’m sorry I fucked up and I’m sorry that I scared you.” He pushed Ten’s hair back and then ducked down and pressed a kiss against his forehead. “I get it now. I understand.”

He wanted to tell Ten that he would never do it again, that he’d never fuck up and he’d never scare him, but he couldn’t promise that. They were both human and mistakes would happen. But he could do his best. He wanted to do his best.

“I need you to tell me when you get scared,” he murmured as he kissed Ten’s forehead again. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Ten whispered and he lifted his head so that he could look into Yukhei’s eyes. “Okay. I love you.”

“I love you too,” Yukhei said softly and then, as Ten leaned up, he leaned in closer and kissed him.


	10. Epilogue: 2022

Every morning, without fail, Yukhei would wake up and stretch, stand up to play with the blinds and get a glass of water, and then come back to bed. He would sprawl over the covers, his long legs dangling haphazardly off the mattress, but the important part was that he could rest his head on Ten’s stomach, one arm draped over his waist.

Ten was always prepared for this because Ten was always awake before him and just pretending to still be asleep. It was his favorite part of the day, watching Yukhei’s silhouette as he let in more sunlight, seeing him raw and unfiltered, simply the man that he loved.

“Good morning,” Yukhei murmured, his voice still rough from sleep. His eyes had closed as Ten’s fingertips massaged his scalp.

“Good morning,” he whispered back with a smile. “Do you want coffee?”

“Mm,” Yukhei hummed and nodded, then nuzzled into Ten’s stomach through the blankets. “I’ll get it. You stay here. Leon will be sad.”

“Such a considerate papa,” Ten teased. Their little cat had taken recently taken to curling himself into Ten’s side beneath the covers and while it made it difficult to shift positions during the night, Ten secretly loved being surrounded. Ten stroked his fingers over Yukhei’s cheek briefly before Yukhei’s hand closed around them and he brought them to his lips.

“Okay,” Yukhei breathed against Ten’s fingers and then sat up. “I’ll be right back.”

Ten blew him a flying kiss when Yukhei paused at the bedroom door and looked back at him with a smile, and then he sighed happily, relaxing further into the nest of warm blankets and a napping cat.

It was easy to love Yukhei. He had realized it early on, although he wished that he could pinpoint the exact date and time he first knew, just so he could go back to that moment and relive it all over. He wished that he could lean in and whisper into his own ear, “remember _this_ , this is it. This is the moment when your heart beats just a little different for him. This is when he becomes a part of you.”

(He wished he could go back in time to moments when it wasn’t easy to be loved, too, so he could hold his own hand through it. But he was happy now, and more brave and even when it was scary, Yukhei was there to work through it with him.)

Yukhei returned with two cups of coffee. He set one on the bedside table, for Ten, and then sipped on his as he crouched next to the bed.

“What do you want to do today?” Ten asked as he rolled onto his side. Leon shifted a little and then his motions became more purposeful, his head carefully pushing out of the blankets. Ten stroked his soft ears back and Yukhei watched with a smile that only grew when Ten glanced back. “What?”

“Nothing,” Yukhei said with a laugh, bringing up one of the wool cat toys he had bought for Louis and Leon. He set it on the mattress within Leon’s reach. “Maybe a nice lazy day? It’s supposed to rain and staying in and watching movies sounds really nice.”

“Mm, and maybe we can do take-out for dinner? There’s that cute Thai place down the street,” Ten added, watching Leon bat at the ball. It rolled off the bed and Ten made a soft sad noise. “Oops,” he said in the silly voice he used for the cats.

“I got it,” Yukhei said, setting down his cup of coffee too. He ducked down, bracing himself on the bed with one hand, but was still talking: “Thai sounds good.”

“Did you find it?” Ten asked. He imagined the ball rolling beneath the bed; they might have to move it. He snorted as he thought about all of the toys that were probably down there. “Do you need the broom?”

“Nah, I got it,” Yukhei said, sitting up. “I found this too,” he added, holding out a ring.

“Oh,” was all Ten could think to say. And then, as he sat up in bed suddenly and Leon scurried away: “Yukhei?”

“I was thinking a lot about us lately,” Yukhei started, his voice soft. “And I was thinking about how much I love you and how I can’t imagine a world without you in it. You are, truly, my everything and I was wondering if you would make me the happiest man in the world, Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul, and marry me?”

“Yes,” Ten breathed. “Yes, of course, yes. Yes,” he repeated, laughing as Yukhei jumped up from his place beside the bed and he repeated it over and again when Yukhei tackled him to the bed. “Don’t lose the ring!” He cautioned with a laugh.

“I won’t, I won’t,” Yukhei laughed, too. “Let’s get it on you, though, just in case.”

It fit perfectly but Ten wasn’t surprised. It was from Yukhei and everything about him fit perfectly, and it always would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for coming on this ride with me. I appreciate every single kudos, subscription, bookmark -- it blew me away to see people reading and enjoying this. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.


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